Twelve Months in Paris
by cassierules
Summary: Paris is two dreams with one stone and an infinite number of possibilities. Snapshots of what Hodgins and Angela have been up to during the team's year apart, one story for every month.
1. Chapter 1

Twelve Months In Paris

Summary: Paris is two dreams with one stone and an infinite number of possibilities. Snapshots of what Hodgins and Angela have been up to during the team's year apart, one story for every month.

_May: The Long Way Home_

A dreary Thursday morning marks their first week in Paris, rain beating down on the windows in Angela's makeshift studio, windows through which an eerie glow of sunlight filtered through suffocatingly grey skies softly lights the room.

It's different from her first time in the city, when she stayed in basement flats on streets teeming with illicit hotspots frequented by hookers and rich French daughters, spending her nights with boys who practically spoke fire, and days walking the back streets of Montrepasse, calling her dad twice a month from different pay phone every time, staying up with the one special girl, painting the wild nights with cheap colors until time and faces blurred together, and she finally drifted away.

Today, she's fast asleep, her head down on the tablet of her easel, which holds a canvas trapping an blue-eyed angel in mid-flight, rising from the dirt with blue-tinted wings, stretching wiry, strong, arms to the sky as the sunlight catching on his dull gold hair. She dreamt of him on the plane, and like some of the other dreams she's had, this one just won't let her go.

It's the first thing Angela's painted in Paris, so it's sort of a beginning.

A symbol of rebirth?

Maybe.

Yawning slightly, Jack passes by the open door of her studio, formerly the apartment's second bedroom, on his way to get a drink. The place suits both their needs, it's low-key enough, tucked into a mostly overlooked, though still quaint, middle-class district, for them to live anonymously, yet has enough small, luxurious touches for them to feel accomplished.

_Two dreams with one stone, _he thinks, absently switching on the coffee maker.

The kitchen is mostly bare, since they've left behind everything they couldn't pack, save for the car, which he sent for almost as soon as he signed the lease.

From what he's heard, the "car" has miles and miles to go on it. Of course, that was interspersed with chilling blues guitar riffs, but Jack's pretty sure he has the gist of it. There'd been things about maintenance, insurance, and liabilities that Angela's dad had mentioned on their way back from the biker's lot, more specifically, if he ever hurt his girl again, the meaning of the afterlife would be personally redefined for him. The man had also asked for Wendell's address, then set off back on the road, a satisfied smile on his face.

He doesn't need the threats to keep him in line anymore, not now. Losing Angela the first time was bad enough. The second time? Anyone stupid enough to chance the second time deserved all he had to give

and more. He twists the ring around his finger and pours a second cup of coffee, stirring in cream and three packets of sugar, just how she likes it.

It's definitely different. A whole new beginning that can't be broken down into any purer form.

A symbol of rebirth?

Maybe.

Angela's awake now, on her way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The rain is making her feel drowsier, if that were possible, and after spending the night thinking of warzones and jungles, broken hearts and broken chances while sweeping slashes of paint across her canvas, she thinks maybe she could use a pick-me-up. Maybe when they get more settled, she'll persuade him to add some color to the whitewashed walls. Maybe, he'll even agree. Halfway there, they bump into each other, sending Jack's coffee to the floor, and little splashes of a dull gold that matches his hair to the wall.

"Oh, God. I'm sorry. I am so not a morning person."

He just shrugs. "You don't say. Here, Ange."

Jack hands her the cup of coffee and she takes a sip. It's perfect.

"When'd you learn how I like my coffee?"

"I _do_ have a memory. Besides, Brennan always orders for you. She takes hazelnut cream, so logically, you take one cream, three sugars."

In spite of herself, she laughs. "You can take the squint outta town..."

"Hey, it's not like you're any better. You spent yesterday watching subtitles CSI reruns trying to solve the cases!"

"You bought an ant farm!"

He leads Angela back to the studio, and they sit on a sofa pushed into the corner of the room, both laughing, not exactly sure why. They watch early morning shadows play across the floor, and she feels like she'd out on her own for the first time again, young and free and a little bit scared, the girl with anew name and a guitar pick hanging around her neck at the Houston bus depot. He just thinks it couldn't get any better.

"What were you doing up so late anyway?", he asks, raking a hand through her dark curls.

"Mostly...trying to figure out what the hell we're doing here.", she chuckles, leaving an empty cup of coffee in his lap to go get her painting.

"Okay?"

"No, I mean, I'm not having second thoughts. It's just, we've been here for a whole week. It's like I'm in withdrawal."

"From what?", he jokes. "Trying to get Booth and Brennan together?"

"Uh-uh, don't even go there, Jack. He's in a warzone and she's in the middle of nowhere with Daisy of all people. If I was the magic eight ball, I'd say outlook not good. What if...it's a year!"

"Yeah, it is a year."

"Oh, and I finished this last night.", she says, laying the painting on the sofa, facing him. Jack's jaw drops.

"Wow, Ange. Um, you're better than I thought.", he replies hesitantly.

"Yeah, thanks for that."

For her sake, he bites his tongue and doesn't point out he's seen man in the portrait before.

In a mirror.

"Hey, Angela? It's a year. Twelve moths until we go home. Just think of it as the long road back.

She holds up a hand to stop him. "If we're gonna be married, no "car" and "road" analogies. My dad had one fore everything, and I'm kinda scarred for life."

She studies him in the wispy light, wiry and strong, a teasing grin on his face. No shirt, green plaid boxers. Electric blue eyes.

"Sweet of you to say, though.", she tells him, biting her tongue as she takes the painting back.

For his sake, Angela won't even mention the tattoo.

AN: Yeah, kinda a long set-up chapter. Next time, the table-stealing commences when jack and Angie needs to get a quick restaurant reservation for Father's Day.

PLEASE R/R!


	2. Chapter 2

EDIT: Guys, this is a REPOST of the original chapter two, which confused a few readers. First, I thought it was just a couple of odd ducks, but on going back and reading the chapter, I realized I'd backspaced out (you know that weird thing the computer does when you type too fast and it starts to auto-highlight, then when you hit another key, erases all it highlighted? _Yeah._) a few parts of the story, so here they are, retyped. Otherwise though, the chapter is completely the same as the first time.

Part Two

June: Food for Thought

Sometimes, Jack thinks Paris runs a whole different time thing. Not a time zone, because of course, he the scientist knows about the earth, and it's patterns and revolutions and the strange conditions nature puts upon humanity, like a tax for living on the planet. He's thinking a whole different_ thing._

The days here pass faster than they ever did in DC, each morning infused with an irrepressible energy that keeps the city bright and bustling, and the sun sets on the iconic skyline, swallowing up a steady stream of cars on their way home in shades of golden red and orange, refusing to slow down and shut up even when dark comes and he and Angela stay up and point at the stars, or airplanes, whatever they might be. There must be some kind of drug in the water, too, because he's never felt like this before. Something's thrown open his mind and every thought rushes forth, blending into some sort of mental soup that makes a little bit of sense in the hours between dark and dawn, when he wakes up to his girl beside him, her breath hot and sticky on the back of his neck.

Yet even now, his mind freezes and his heart stops at the mention of three little words.

"My dad's coming.", Angela announces, her voice tight, yet unmistakably happy.

He swallows. It's not as though he can fault her for that, because scary as "Dad" is, the man raised her.

He was the one who chased her childhood monsters off the tour bus and taught her how to drive, disaster as though each one probably was, this guy put up with it. So Jack's gotta give credit where it's due.

Not that it makes him feel any better. He opens his mouth to reply, hoping for something dignified and brave-sounding, at the least.

"You're wearing Batman jammies! Wait, you fit kids' sizes?", he blurts out with a nervous, half-cut off laugh. Angela gives him a death glare.

"This coming from the guy who has lucky rocketship underpants. Thank God for spousal privilege.", she shoots back, brushing her hands over the paint-splattered fabric of the bottoms.

He falls back on the bed, his clearly mock angry wife's eyes still trained on him like a vulture's on roadkill. Women, he swears, totally have laser vision.

"Jack. Seriously. We need reservations for dinner and it's three-thirty in the afternoon."

"He _told _you what time he was coming?"

"Yeah. _Oh._", Angela smiles and crosses the room, a sheepish look on her face.

"Dad left when I was little. I didn't get to see him until my mom went on some drunken gambling junket and kicked me out of the house. The whole "freak devil protector" thing is sort of his way of making up for eleven years of total hell. He's not that scary in real life."

Jack bites down on his bottom lip. He the theorist knows he should've known, and the rationalist in him replays every archived conversation, while the analyst whispers about connections, firing between neurons, and the man remains speechless. She gives him an apologetic look, almost as though she's sorry for it, then turns away.

"Hey. Ange, wait.", he mutters, willing the subway train of thoughts to shut the hell up. Gently, he touches her shoulder and brings her closer, tucking stray stands of hair behind her ear. He drinks in her eyes, huge and dark and open, and presses his body to hers, listening to their screaming heartbeats.

"Baby, let's go get the reservations."

They break apart almost cordially, but he's not worried because she has a tiny smile on her face, almost like she's telling him she's okay again. He nods wordlessly, and she gets it, shrugging almost imperceptibly as she tugs on the sleeves of her pyjamas.

They find the phone book, buried deep in the closet behind old newspapers and notes, Angela's sparkly wardrobe and piles of Jack's stark layers. It's almost like a treasure hunt, so he thinks briefly of Brennan, examining the thread of humanity under fast fading sunlight, while he digs through paper, old takeout menus and french ads for everything from groceries to fumigation, and thinks of trenches in the desert, of Booth's voice rising above terrified screams and cries. They haven't bought a TV, but they do have Internet, and his conspiracy theorist mind can only imagine what kind of living hell is out there behind those tiny pictures of dictators and kids with guns and promises of takeovers and death. But hell isn't here, so he guesses he might just be happy.

A shrill ring interrupts them, and Angela mutters things about how the hell telemarketers managed to get their number so damn early, and how she's gonna curse them out in Spanish, or something vaugely like that. He can hear her stomping through the apartment, leaving objects to shudder behind her as she makes a beeline for the phone.

"Hello? I don't know who the hell you..! _Oh, hey!._"

She comes back with the cordless in her hand and a huge grin on her face.

"That was Dad. Looks like we can put the phone book away, at least. He's got a table at some place I can't pronounce. Get dressed for seven?"

"Um, sure.", he says, shrugging. If it makes her happy, he's willing to give this whole family thing a try.

Later that night, they're on a balcony perched over the river, watching the last threads of sunlight glisten on the placid water, in shades of silver-blue Angela decides matches Jack's eyes. She wonders if it's a real color, if you can mix it or buy it, because she has a vague idea in her head of something she wants to try soon.

Across from her, he's price-checking the menu, a sort of old habit left over from too many dinners with friends who didn't know his net worth rivals the combined profits of Microsoft, while between them, her father chats up an attractive waitress who's wearing a shirt so low Angela swears she can see the girl's panties, and orders drinks in heavily-accented, fake French that seems almost deliberately bad.

"Angie, what do you want to drink?", he asks, chuckling as the waitress grows more and more irritated, or offended, maybe, though she makes sidelong glances at Jack and Angela, almost as though she wants to ask for something, yet can't bring herself to open her mouth.

"I don't drink, I mean, a Coke, please?"

"Who're you kiddin', baby girl, you could drink me an' the guys under the table last I heard."

Angela just shrugs. Whatever. Though it does pique Jack's interest for a moment, before he hears the last echoes of those old riffs in the back of his mind and decides that perhaps for now, letting his drifting away would just be one of those high-risk things he really has to stop doing.

They order food the second time around, from a grumpy old waiter dressed in a too-tight uniform, his hair as silver as the first few stars, who looks at them with a tiny bit of veiled interest, before scrawling their orders on his pad and striding away with a tiny grin on his face. Paris is different like that, too, because you can actually see the stars, or at least, it seems like it. In DC, all you saw were cell towers and lightning rods tipped with little pinpricks of light. He watches her out of the corner of his eye, smoothing down the pleats of her red-sequined minidress, an "impulse" purchase from a little boutique a block away from their place last week. Somewhere in the restaurant, a flashbulb goes off, and light ricochets from the dress, adding highlights to her hair and an extra mischievous sparkle to her eyes.

Without the flash though, she looks bored, tipping the can of Coke between her thumb and forefinger, watching bronze drops slosh up and fall back, like reverse raindrops in a tiny test chamber. The coke is eventually abandoned, for a little card hidden under her father's outlandishly large wine goblet, which she thinks, only speaks for how wonderfully classy they keep the excess here in Paris.

"Hey...who's M-something and TJ?", she asks, reading off the names written on the card, in an ornate, almost wordlessly condescending calligraphy, surrounded by a simple, black line border.

Jack's mind makes a muddled connection, a sort of subconscious acquired trait now. He remembers Angela lying on the couch, her hair dangling over the edge of the armrest, watching yet another midday crime drama marathon dubbed in french. Complaining half-heartedly about how she would get royalties for every knockoff of her programs once the patents came through, eating nachos while he points out how the girl on TV looks _exactly _like her.

"You didn't.", he says, glaring pointedly at her father from across the table.

"Didn't what?", he chuckles innocently, as a pair of high-schoolers glide past them completely open-mouthed.

"Thought them crime drama actor people might wanna meet the real thing.", he adds, taking another sip of wine.

"Oh, no.", Angela murmurs, flashing back to the Great Texas Highway Rabbit Massacre of 1994, her first time behind the wheel, the guys all pretending to be court-ordered escorts from the Houston Psych Ward, escorting "Crazy Annie" back from day parole.

The band had gotten that idea from the drunken ramblings of some transient who'd latched on to the roadies on their way back from Nevada. Where he'd even gotten the idea to steal reservations from TV CSI's she'd rather not know. Slightly famous ones, too, given the whispers and stares in their general direction, not to mention the sudden sea of digital cameras that's sprung up around the room.

"Dad, I'm not kidding when I say that if this ends up on TMZ, I'm gonna kick your ass.", Angela seethes, trying to kick him under the table and missing, thanks to the embarrassingly high heels that go with her equally humiliatingly sparkly dress.

"Jack...we should _go._", she says, begging more than stating, really.

"_Totally._"

They finally get home at fifteen-to-three in the morning, having spent the night treated for free to a Billy Gibbons tour of the _Other_ Side of Paris, most of which Angela spends ticking off ways she can kill him and leave no forensic evidence, which dear old Dad takes with a smile. Jack thinks he just might be a little too drunk, but he thinks it's an admirable quality, too.

There are more forensic anthropologists in the world than there are people who can put up with a pissed Angela. Maybe, Jack thinks, if he ever becomes a father, he might just give the man a call.

Now, Angela's half-asleep and leaning on Jack's shoulder as he turns the key in their door. Dad's somewhere on the highway, halfway to Portugal, following directions from the travel plan he wrote on a napkin from a Starbucks in Fresno.

Neither of them have eaten, so he half-drags Angela to the couch, and spreads strawberry jam over the last two slices of bread left in the pantry. Even at his sleep-deprived best after their short-cut "dinner", he can't push the thought of congealed blood and fish eggs from his mind, splattered over yellow-white bone browning at the edges with spilled over marrow. At the very least, he's got a kickass Halloween monologue.

"Ange, wake up. Sheesh, eat something, right?", he whispers, nudging her awake.

"Oh. We're home. Mm, okay."

She reaches for the plate and misses, falling back on one of the couch cushions. Sighing, he rips the slice in half and presses it into her hand as he plops down on the couch beside her.

"On a scale of one to ten, this went as well as that scene on Lost with the polar bears in cages.", he says sleepily, watching the night fade into day from their balcony window.

"Eww.", she replies, taking a small, half-aware bite.

"I used to have jam and toast for dinner all the time when I was a kid. 'Cept that one time my mom locked me in the bathroom on a party bus in Vegas.", she yawns, half laughing in spite of herself. Jack drapes an arm over her shoulder and squeezes. Even if she pretends not to care, he knows she does, and silent comfort is better than silent burial. He of all people should know.

"Happy Father's Day, Jack. It's Sunday."

"Uh, yeah, your Dad's on the road to Lisbon, I think. Said he had business to do with some black market beaver pelt dealer guy. I didn't ask.", he tells her, wondering exactly how much of what's going on is really registering to her right now.

Angela sits up and blinks a couple of times, getting a feel for where she is.

"I meant Happy Father's Day to you.", she says, her voice clear and strong, eyes sparkling with something new and different he can't quite pin down.

She stares back at the shock painted on his face, and gives him a big, toothy smile, daring him to say something brave and dignified, something that even now, when all she can think of is bed, will make that_ I'm your guy_ bounce endlessly off the walls of her brain.

"I'm...you're..._really_? Like, this time it's not a false positive and we're not going to go save baby pigs?"

Angela gives him a weak slap and shuts her eyes, letting her imagination paint the scene before her.

Jack on the couch, unbuttoning his powder blue shirt, his jacket thrown over one of the armrests. A whirling, terrifying and incredible tornado ripping through that mind of his, the gears that never stop grinding to an uncertain halt behind those eager, pensive eyes. His heart slows and time in his universe refuses to sort itself into linear sense, heat creeps up his back and neck, as the imaginary breath of a dragon consumes him.

"Five weeks, Jack. I confirmed...well, yesterday."

"Really? I mean, when was this?"

She covers her mouth with a sticky, jam-covered, palm and winces.

"Like when did we..._do it?_ Um, that time in the Medieval Europe exhibit, probably? Remember, when Fischer locked himself in the closet and we had to-"

"Brennan would kill us if she knew what we did to those _precious anthropological finds_."

They dissolve into somewhat embarrassed laughter and draw closer on the couch as the first rays of sunlight herald a brand new day.

Something's thrown open his mind and every thought rushes forth, blending into some sort of mental soup that makes a little bit of sense in the hours between dark and dawn.

"Guess this puts crazy sex in front of the Mona Lisa totally out of the question, hey?"

"Shut up, Jack."

"Angela", he murmurs softly into her hair. "I'm your guy."

"Tell me that again when we write those people apology letters."

AN: Heh, yeah, gotta love Billy, right? The guy needs to be onscreen more. Parker Booth does, too, for that matter. Anyway, I also got some PM's asking why I decided to have the "Angela's crappy childhood" throwaway line in this chapter. All I can say is that it will play a part in a future chapter. Also, responding to the same PM (I don't know is they'd be comfortable with me naming names) but yes, there will be some Angela being an artist in the immediate future, Chapter 3, to be exact!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: This chapter's kinda heavy on Angela, so if you aren't as much a fan of her as you are of Jack, proceed with caution. Also, I'm aware my Booth dialogue is a little OOC. The only ones I can seem to write somewhat IC is Brennan, Zack, Jack and Angela. I'm a blank on Booth, Cam, Sweets, Caroline, well, you get the idea. Enjoy!

Part Three

July: Go On, Paint the Town Red

The days leading up to the fourth of July are almost terrifyingly foreign for Angela. The streets stay clean, lacking the characteristic tacky store window displays and mailbox flyers advertising public barbeques, and the people go about their lives, pushing past each other at the crosswalks and balancing briefcases with grocery bags on their way home. There are no teenage boys selling fireworks from their backpacks, scattering at the slightest sound of a siren in the distance, no sudden exodus of corn dog stands on the street below their apartment. There's no military parade, no band in full dress marching to the rhythm of boots on concrete, no cycling salutes to the dead playing on TV. It's depressing in the worst of ways.

She looks down at the drawing in her lap, watching the penciled stars and stripes fly in some sort of imaginary home soil. The same flag, she knows, flies proud in desert sandstorms, casting it's shadow over a sergeant shouting orders as he marches to the beat of gunfire and grenades. She thinks about what_ home_ must mean at all, and during the week, contemplates calling Sweets to talk, just to talk, then realizes that if anyone's angrier than Cam at their sudden "sabbatical", it's probably Sweets, alone in his office, passing time visiting Zack when he can. Angela hardly realized, but Sweets had somehow become a part of them, just as..._important?_ No, just as _valuable _as any member of the team.

She talks to Jack, of course, and remembers being celibate as she lies beside him in the middle of the night, listening to the buzzing silence of the world around them. At least now, she's got a much better reason to avoid sex than because of her mostly terrible taste in partners.

Eventually, she works up the nerve to at least dial his extension at the Jeffersonian, fourth of July afternoon, wondering if he even still works there. He's smart, and driven, like the rest of them, and twelve years old for all she knows. Lots of chances just about anywhere for Sweets. Angela gets the the last digit of the long-distance code before the screen flashes "Incoming Call."

Jack's gone out for groceries, so she thinks he's probably screwed up his french and told yet another cashier that he thinks their mother has nice boobs.

Sighing, she answers with a smile. "You only get cake if I can lick the batter."

"Um...Angela?", a familiar voice replies, deep and gravelly, layered with dust and dry air, hoarser than she remembers yet still comfortably laid-back, as though he could be talking about hockey and comic books, sipping on chocolate milk in the seat across from Brennan, shooting down Sweets with the same boyish grin on his face.

"Booth! How did you get our...just, you're alive!", she gushes, mentally kicking herself for starting to sound like Daisy on her worst day.

"Ange, I lived through a brain tumor and went to my own funeral. If Brennan's veggie crap didn't kill me, you won't have much of a better chance.", he jokes, and she slips into the easy banter and slick, light, conversations they'd always used to have.

"Mmmm, I always like a challenge. Especially you know, across oceans and everything."

"Seriously? Get Jack on the line, and we'll have a little man-to-man."

"_Shut up. _Oh, wow. We haven't talked in like, three months. Wow."

He laughs, almost as though he hasn't in far too long. "Yeah, it's the fourth of July, you know? The guys are all rocking out to some country in the hall, taping those things on CNN, when you say hi to everyone? Yeah. Anyway, I called Rebecca yesterday, so I though I'd get you guys. How's Paris?"

Angela inwardly groans and shakes her head. "You mean you haven't talked to Brennan? _Oh, Booth._"

"You haven't changed a bit, have you? I like that."

"Careful. My dad probably bugged this phone.", she giggles, almost feeling the apartment melt away, back to the shining glass windows and shimmering chrome interior of the Jeffersonian. They talk for a little while longer like that, and he tells her about his boys, while she goes on about the city, about early morning boat rides with Jack and classy lunches ordering things she can't even say. He laughs, and she does, too. Angela thinks this is it, it's _home,_ before the conversation eventually turns to less trivial matters.

"Hey, Booth, stay okay, will you?", she says, a little bit of pleading leaking into her voice.

Somewhere far away, he smiles into his palm, glancing at the tattooed skull on the inside of his wrist, with a little superman symbol just beside the eye, the one he got inked just before shipping off. The tangible reminder of _home,_ of what he's really living for every day. Because he is someone- _Parker's_- hero, and he wants his Squint Squad, his heroes with him, too.

"I will, Ange, I promise.", he begins, faltering, because that just sounds so dumb and really, he should stop being so damn condescending towards the squints. "I promise that when we all come back, we'll have a night at the Founding Fathers. All of us. And we'll...", he stops.

_What if there won't be a we to come back to?,_ he thinks. He's seen enough death here to know that maybe it's selfish to expect everyone to go back to their terrible, terrible, jobs.

"We'll bring stuff, me and Jack.", Angela finishes for him. "If you give me Parker's size, I'll get the little guy a t-shirt. You'll get a _surprise_, of course.", she says, wishing she was back in the heaven of normalcy they'd just come from.

Booth chuckles at that. "Hey, Ange, looks like I'm needed to round up some rouge Brad Paisley fans out there. Say hi to Jack and stay...you. Go and paint the town or something."

Angela giggles. "You _know _I will.", she says, just the words Booth can't commit to saying, because they wouldn't be true for him. They say their canned goodbyes, and Angela gives him Brennan's satellite phone number, just in case. She almost tells him she's pregnant, too, but decides to hold off. She promised Booth a good surprise when he got back, after all.

When he hangs up, she decides...she needs to sort things out is what.

It's dark when Jack comes back with the groceries and a few other things, a stack of imported American magazines and new brushes for Angela, whose paintings have taken up whatever half of the apartment they don't spend time in. He still doesn't know the roads too well, and rush hour road rage in Paris, he's learned, makes DC look like Candyland.

He pretends to be annoyed when he trips over the back of a canvas late at night, but really, he loves the things, trains and buses trapped in mid-day traffic by a constant stream of pedestrians, a tiny cat with a ball of yarn, watching it's owner sprawled in front of the TV on a lazy summer afternoon, children daring each other to go on, higher and higher, in a tree that seems to wind up to the sky. However the hell she got even better than she was before is a mystery to him.

Despite all that though, Jack's not quite prepared for what greets him when he pushes the slightly creaky door of the apartment open. His artist is perched precariously on the top rung of a rusty old ladder, her hair just brushing the dusty ceiling, hands covered with caked on paint under a still dripping coat of yellow carving out a scene with nothing but her fingers on the walls of their living room, while the TV is on to french music video channel.

"What the hell, Angela?", he yelps as she wobbles on the back two legs of the ladder.

"Hey. How was shopping?"

"Does the lease even cover this?", he mutters in disbelief, as Angela sways in time to the music. When she doesn't answer, he goes in for a better look.

"Oh.", Jack gasps, somewhere between genuine shock giving way to awe. The scene's been sketched out in charcoal, crude by her standards, but he knows it's the floor of the Jeffersonian's medico-legal lab, with he and Zack hunched over a rack of test-tubes, comparing notes as Angela comes up behind them, her arms full of drawings in the bottom corner, while behind them, Brennan and Booth are arguing on the platform, and Caroline watches, with a bored look on her face. Cam is glaring at the group of interns huddled around the spectroscope closer to the center of the picture, and Sweets steals glances outside the glass walls in Daisy's arms.

What gets him the most are those walls, or rather, what's behind the glass. In one panel, a wild concert her dad and the guys, a crowd that sloshes back and forth like spilled water and a little girl cheering front row center, while beside that is a dreary mansion with a little boy leaning on the fence, a smirk on his face as a cockroach crawls over his arm. The second panel is a busy street, a college on one side, with wide windows through which an older version of the same boy watches chemicals fizzle and react, and a decrepit old apartment building on the other, where the girl stands on a dumpster dressed in nearly nothing, a can of paint in her hand. Then finally, a third panel, a playground, where a grown-up version of the girl, Angela, sits on the swing, while the grown-up boy, Jack, pulls back the chains, giving her a mighty push forward. There's a sandbox in the corner, empty except for a bucket and pail.

"For y'know, the kid.", she chuckles, filling in the blanks like she's just read his mind. Jack nods, sweeps over the sketches again, and decides it would be a nice time to come back to reality.

"Me and the kid want you down from there. Majority rules, Angie."

"Majorities are for losers. Don't preach when you own the t-shirt."

He can't help but smile at that one, as she carefully lowers herself one creaky rung at a time.

"Why, Mrs. Jack Hodgins, did you just call me a hypocrite?"

She giggles, close enough to the ground that he isn't worried anymore. "Maybe I _whoa_-"

Angela hits the ground with a dead-sounding thud, cursing madly as her arm hits a tower of canned goods in one of the grocery bags, leaving soup cans rolling in every direction.

"Damn You, Murphy's Law.", she mutters, trying to kick aside the toppled ladder. It hurts, just like she thinks it will, when she tries to get up, and instead falls into Jack's chest, taking a sharp breath of store-brand soap and street air tinged with old womens' perfume and cigarette smoke.

"Angie,you really have to be more careful now.", he whispers, squeezing her closer to him.

"I will _never _live this down.",she sighs, trying to make the best of things, as usual.

They end up on the couch, like they always seem to on these beautiful nights, the cool evening breeze blowing in to play with Angela's hair, before sucking back and leaving them both tangled in each other.

He brings an ice pack, better known as their last pack of frozen he's-not-quite-sure for the bruises, little purple nicks that run their way up her arms and cheek.

"I guess I know how you feel about spinach.", she remarks on the cold square package, the outside frozen layer of which is beginning to melt over her fingers, still stained with the last layer of paint, a muddled and dull shade of brown.

Appropriate, she thinks, while Jack stays silent, save for his calm, measured breaths, louder and louder as they seem to drown out the noise of the late night crowd under them.

"It's not entirely accurate.", she says, speaking just to fill the silence. "Daisy and Sweets and Zack's there, but I didn't have room for a...", she stops, not knowing what to call it.

"Shhhh. Leave the rationalizing to Brennan, baby. Just keep talking."

So she does. On this night, without the fireworks and the steaks and parades, she tells him about the picture, about the mundane little details that make him laugh, about the stories she thinks could go with each pose, holding her breath just a little to see if he'll smile.

"It's_ home_, Jack. It's everything. And I want that memory, you know? Just for now. Even if I never get it back.", she says with a kind of damning finality, thinking back to Booth's call. It's all kind of worth it, right, everything people do? It's worth it if for only the fleeting moment it feels as though it is.

Worth it, she realizes, for every moment that comes out of the one before it. Worth is to keep chasing, like Brennan, to keep hoping, like Booth. Worth it to dream like Daisy and love like Jack. Worth the pain and the losses. Worth it for the prize, and every one that comes after.

He's thinking about worth, too, but they're hardly Angela's big, earth-spanning, considerations at all. He's the genius, and his thoughts are pure, like the elements of chemicals broken down into their most basic atoms.

_She's worth it._

Tune in next time, when Jack and Angie go shopping for the kid!


	4. Chapter 4

AN:Sorry about the delay guys, but sadly, even the best of us (jokes) have to study for finals! Hope you guys enjoy this one! I kind of ended a minor plot point here and put a backdoor start to another one, which is picked up more next chapter.

Regardless, have fun!

_Part Four_

_August: Things Indicative of Love_

For as long as she remembers, August has always brought an overcast sense of hesitance, flavored with the same sort of ridiculous, inebriated excitement that shouldn't exist out of family gatherings and spring break sex. It's the final month of the official summer, and the tourist tsunami has faded into a gentle tide, ebbing at the corners of Paris' picturesque cityscape in the form of tour buses carrying fewer and fewer passengers each time they pass, pop-up street shops selling shirts and keychains packing up earlier and earlier. In the tail end of the row of shops behind their block, weathered mothers and their adorably sticky children shop for first uniforms and new backpacks, still excited for school, while next door, a hair salon caters to teenage girls giggling about what new hell is in store from Monsieurs and Madams so-and-so, leaving the the old women working reception to chuckle over their younger brothers left in the waiting room, reading back issues of french tabloids.

To put it simply, Angela hates August. She has since her eleventh birthday, and she liable to remain so until she either dies or gets old enough so that time, years and months and days, no longer matter.

It puzzles Jack, and like any good scientist, the puzzle taunts him and begs for an answer, whispering theories and experiments in his ear, asking to be put together. Passing her painting on his way back from the kitchen, he runs his fingers over Zack's strangely shadowed face, trying to remember the days when his best friend still had the same sparkle in his eye that Angela has chosen to honor his memory by.

He misses the lab more than he thinks is healthy, misses the work and the people and the challenge, though maybe he thinks he shouldn't. After all, his life has changed, she given him that, and he's going to be more than the bug and slime guy now.

But seeing that beautiful snapshot of the lab is just twisting the knife.

Jack toys with his Cantilever worldwide credit card in the door of her studio, where Angela has locked herself up in for the past couple of weeks. A old, and he guesses, somewhat misogynistic instinct rises inside him, to rescue the proverbial princess from her tower. Of course, modern rationale and previous experience combine to tell him the princess would let him up for a quickie and toss him back out the window. Since they haven't had a quickie on French soil, that option is out the window, too.

"Angie? Um...it's me. I come bearing a day out on the town.", he teases, waving the card. He's big on reading the literature, so he's not one to be scared away by mood swings or morning sickness or anything like that, but these days, Angela is something else entirely. So he's going it on someone else's research, namely last night's late night french-subtitled English documentary on retail therapy.

"Seriously?", she sighs dejectedly, washing out her paintbrush in a mason jar resting on the tablet of her easel.

"Is it okay is I just stay? I kind of wanna finish this."

Jack shakes his head at the empty canvas before her.

"So bring it. Paint some people on the canals, eat something, show me off, come on, Angie.", he laughs, feigning happy in the hopes that she'll join him. Angela gives him a small, half-hearted grin.

"Sure. Whatever."

So she goes with him, hooking her arm in his as they walk past the vintage-detailed shops that line their street, dodging children taking advantage of the final few days of summer and other young couples sucking on sherbets waiting for the bus. Angela plays the part, plays it better than she really wants to, gives him the obligatory smile and pretends to be excited, or charmed, or absolutely smitten when he ponies up the cash for every little thing she wants.

Well, _wants_ in the sense that she's still herself, after all, and she does want an impressive wardrobe for their return to the Jeffersonian. She shops for Brennan and Cam, too; simple, understated, pieces from a vintage boutique for her best friend, something loud and ultimately authoritarian from an upscale shop for her boss. That keeps her hands and mind busy, thinking of her friends, imagining Indiana Jones' cartoon jungle and Cam sifting through college application forms, maybe more terrified than she ever was in a morgue.

"This country should roll out a damn parade for us bailing out their economy.", Jack remarks, balancing a tray on authentic made in France french fries and chilled black teas in his arms. Angela stares blankly past and grips the glass he hands her, watching the sun glimmer off the hard edges of the ice cubes floating within. They're outside a tiny cafe decorated in moody, vivid, colors that look like they've been taken straight out of a Munch painting, amidst the quiet chatter of the small crowd on the street.

Jack sighs and takes the seat across from her, moving some of the shopping bags off their table and takes a sip from his drink, watching her intently.

"Jack...", she begins, feeling the his sky-blue eyes burn into her skin.

"We're gonna have a kid?", she half-asks, her voice going up a bit at the end.

"Uh, yes? Hey, you're the one who's pregnant.", he jokes, instantly realizing what a jerk he must sound like.

"Should we?"

Angela lets the question hang and time slows. Jack frowns and nods hesitantly, gripping his glass even tighter. She can see the veins in his arms pop and the crystalline droplets of water run over his fingers like glass fireflies. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair and focuses on a spot just under the table while he composes a reply.

"Of course we should. I mean, we've got the money and a place to live and jobs, right?", he offers, almost trying to convince himself that all the bases are covered here, running through the imaginary checklist of everything they could possibly be lacking to raise a child.

"You've got me.", she replies.

"Um, okay, yeah, so our kid has solid parental role models. And...we're together. That's good."

Angela shakes her head. "No, Jack. I _can't_ do this."

"We have traveler's health insurance, if you want to see a doctor or something like that. Or we can, I mean, we can go back. It's okay if you want to go back."

She glares at him, practically seething with rage, her fingers curling into fists by her side.

"You are _such_ a...", she stops, not quite knowing what would be insulting enough for the moment, and hits him as hard as she can. She lost all of her fistfights in school and never has been a fighter, but right now, it's shock value that counts more than actual pain.

"What the hell, Angela?", Jack cries, tea staining his bright green shirt a murky shade of brown. He looks up, rubbing his cheek as she shoves her chair aside and strides off in the opposite direction, the light brown highlights in her hair shimmering in the mid-afternoon sunlight, glittering like a Christmas tree decorated for no one to enjoy.

He catches up to her easily enough, tearing through the street with their purchases hastily collected in each hand, given that she's never been much of a runner anyway, and besides, Angela is sitting dejectedly in a park bench, glaring at bystanders and getting wary looks as people walk by, ultimately forgetting her in favor of the chaos of their own lives.

"I _can't_ do this.", she repeats, moving away when Jack reaches for her shoulder. He sighs and takes a seat on the opposite side of the bench, toying with the fringe of his shirt, which has begun to dry at the corners in the sunlight.

"Fine then, I _can't_ either. Because since you seem to have a gag order on whatever your problem is, let's just let it rot and fester until _hey_, maybe something happens. Oh, right, and let's deal with it then, too, because why the hell it would matter now, I just don't _know_.", he snaps at her, suddenly embarrassed at the realization that their first married fight is happening over reasons unknown, on display to the assembled french public.

Angela regards him with a dirty look. "Okay, genius. Whenever my mom broke up with her latest boyfriend for hire, she'd just hit me until she realized the neighbors probably heard something and we'd just have to move again. If she caught me crying, I didn't get food for the rest of the day, and when I got older, she just kicked me right out. Talk about how nice Michigan in December must be for an eight-year-old.", she laughs sarcastically, giving Jack a wry grin.

"I told you about the party bus, right? The last summer vacation I had, for my eleventh birthday in August, we went to Houston, and I walked in on her and some guy, he got mad, hit me a bunch of times and so we drove to a concert and she left me backstage with a note talking about how stupid I was and how totally not worth it rockstar sex was for some messed-up bastard child that taught her more about the value of a condom than sex ed in school ever did. Seeing the pattern here yet?"

"Um...no. But that was a lot of words...", Jack mutters hesitantly, not quite sure whether he should hug her, offer to call Sweets, or keep his mouth shut. In the end, the latter wins out.

Angela groans inwardly, letting her shoulders slump forward, tired of raging at Jack.

"We're going to have a kid in five months.", she sighs wearily, not quite caring what he must be thinking at the moment. This is, after all, her issue to sort out.

"I know what this sounds like, Jack. I care about people, I'll give you that. I'm not...I mean, I'm not like Brennan. I didn't chose to shut everyone out and I don't think everyone's bad. I never did. But...he, or she is going to be our kid. Eventually it won't just be a cute baby or like looking after Parker and I don't know how I'm gonna take being tied down. What happens if I can't get out and do something stupid and can't stop?", she asks, more to validate her thoughts out loud than have Jack hear them, really.

He reaches for her hand and takes it in his, running his fingers over her palm.

"Angie, close your eyes, okay?", he whispers, getting caught in the intoxicating scent of her, her shampoo and leather boots, the slight hint of cinnamon perfume. He picks something from his wallet with his other hand, slips it over her fingers and twists it around her wrist.

"Open."

"Do you keep everything you value in your wallet?", she giggles, looking down at the rubber band around her wrist. It's typical Jack, such a little thing meaning so much.

"Hey, you asked for what kept me from doing something stupid. Not that it's foolproof, but listen, whatever crap happened before, I don't care. Angela, as the father of this child, there is nobody I trust more to raise it with me than you. Unless you didn't count, I don't have a doctorate in damn parenting, and shamelessly admit that this kid is going to take to a microscope instead of a go-kart when they get old enough. So please, I'm gonna need all the help I can get.", he mock pleads, feigning desperation, though the mischievous twinkle in the corners of his eyes give him dead away.

_Typical Jack, such a little thing meaning so much._

They spend the rest of the afternoon ooh-ing and ahh-ing over shiny display cases, occasionally dropping in to purchase the item of interest. Jack gets a few looks from the soon-to-be-college students perched on the edge of the sidewalk, sipping beer from Styrofoam cups, their eyes sweeping from him to Angela. She secretly enjoys the attention, though strangely, not as much as she would have thought so. Their arms fill with bags upon bags of things, a cubist scenery painted in logos and plastic, and by the time that the crowds disperse, on their way home for one last night of staying up until the moon sets, drunk out of their minds on alcohol and love, there's only one place they have left to visit, something that he is adamant on doing, despite the bloodred sunset telling them that perhaps, like the store and tourist stands, it's time to pack up as well.

"A toy store, Jack, really?", Angela groans, as another young mother drags her screaming toddler through the vintage-detailed doors, murmuring obscenities in French.

"Yup.", he replies, setting his share of shopping bags down beside the counter. The shop is small enough so that they can see the bags from the back aisle, and that aside, the woman working the cash hardly seems like a thief.

"You said that eventually, the kid won't be a cute baby. So, I say, in honor of living in the moment, have fun while they are.", he laughs, taking an oversized wooden racetrack from the shelf.

"In honor of living in the moment? Are you feeling sick?"

"Come on, I really need to get rid of some of the extra cash",he jokes.

"I'm insulted that there _is_ extra cash.", Angela says, grinning back. "But I'm a hundred percent for stocking up on adorable Japanese-import plushies while they're cheap and available somewhere other than Amazon."

They shop gender neutral, classics like teethers shaped like planets and a squadron of purple rubber ducks, a Gothic-themed mobile that comes with soft black lightning bolts and puffy pink clouds which plays electric guitar versions of lullabies, though Angela thinks her father would consider it blasphemy, and crib-sized plush frog. There are a few things they each turn down out of sheer outrageousness, like an oversized foam puzzle that assembles into double helices, color-coded with the DNA alphabet, which Jack thinks is a useful investment for the kid's future.

"You cannot turn my child into a squint.", she mutters angrily, as the line up behind the register with their purchases.

"There's medication to keep it from being too obvious.", he teases, as he places the puzzle back on the shelf.

"_Jack._ Seriously, I want this kid to have a chance outside the world of doctorates."

"Don't say you wouldn't be proud."

They sidle up to the register and lay their purchases on the counter, still whisper-squabbling about their child's future. It's all imaginary now, some kind of wishful reality and perhaps, damning prediction, but it is fun, and Jack's amazed his wife's still kind of embarrassed to be called an out-an-out squint after all these years. He finds it adorable.

The cashier reads them their total, her eyes facing down so they aren't able to see her utter look of surprise at the digits on her display. He takes his card out, then pauses suddenly, looking towards the back end of the store.

"Um, hold on. I forgot something.", he says hastily, hurrying to the back, grabbing something of the shelf, and adding it to their things with a trademark scheming half-smile on his face.

"_Noo_.",Angela sighs, burying her face in her hands.

"Sorry baby, my money, my rules.", Jack says, turning back to the cashier. "Sorry, Miss, what's our total again?"

After he pays, they load their purchases into the car, and she finally lets loose on Jack as they ride down the rapidly emptying streets, framed with the last rays of sunshine piercing through the clouds floating in for the night.

"You bought a hundred and forty Euro stuffed cockroach with the intention of giving that to our future child? Jack Stanley Hodgins the-", she pauses to count on her fingers,"Fourth, you have _issues_."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing Sweets, besides it's cute. Come on, can you say no to these eyes?", he tells her at a red light, shoving the toy bugs pincers in her face.

"Shut up before I hit you again."

"Oh, come on, as much as you pretend to have your femininity insulted whenever I point out you're a squint, you love it."

"Yeah, so...oh, _crap._"

"Ha! There it is, you admitted it! Angela Montenegro just loves being a squint!",he shouts, earning glares from nearby drivers, most of whom are on cell phones, trying in vain to clean up their children.

"Shut Up!", she begs, yanking on his arm as they hang a tight left on to their street.

In truth though, she really does love it. Because Angela the squint is everything she could ever dream of being, everything that takes her past and laughs in its face. Not to mention, Angela the squint has him, and if she tries, tries hard enough to make him proud, she has what it takes to forget being locked in squalid hotel rooms watching airplanes flicker in the sky, eating out of half-cooked microwave dinners watching her own blood trickle into shower drainpipes late at night.

She knows she can forget because it isn't the kid's life, or hers, at least not anymore. It won't be, because logic tells her memories fade and people change. What logic doesn't say, though, is what she's already sure of, the love drives change, and memories are made of love.


	5. Chapter 5

**EXTENDED AN: Oh my GOD! I have left this fic alone for too much time! I guess with summer holidays, I just got so damn distracted! SO SORRY! I hope there are still people out there reading this!**

**Thought that for this chapter, I'd go for a bit more of a plot-driven approach. Because I'd been getting PM's (GAH! I have a LOT to catch up on!) about how I spend too much time on the thoughts and the moments. So if you guys want the old style back or would like me to stick with this one, speak up!**

**Anyways, I rewatched the episode where Jack and Angie broke up and thought I should do something with the "trust" issues. The payout happens at the end, so don't get mad if you think you know where it's going!**

**Also, in light of recent Bones spoilers, I'm asking you guys, should I continue it the full 12 months, or end at seven (aka November)?**

_September: What Goes Around Comes Around_

Jack notes several similarities between September in Paris and September in DC.

_One:_ Everyone is back from extended summer holidays, sporting orange Creamsicle tans that cut off abruptly where their shorts do, and shirts are unbuttoned and rolled up during impromptu meetings between executives and managers at picnic tables in the park, arguing over the bottom line in rapid, heated, french as they glance occasionally at their children on the playground, counting the hours until the nannies get back, too.

Suddenly seeming washed-out and tired, despite sun-bleached hair and sparkling chains from exotic locales, as though the drab, grey, sickening and addictive reality that faces them for the next ten months is rushing up too fast, threatening to bowl past them without a care in the world.

_Two:_ It's _quieter_! The groups of teens and college students who used to camp out on their street have gone with the summer vendors and tourists, back to the lives their parents know about, the ones where their children are beautiful and perfect, high achievers who have the world at their fingertips and the future wrapped around the fingers they decorate with garish rings and chipping black nail polish.

The spirit of youth and rebellion leaves with them, and Jack has to admit, it's a bit depressing when the only busker that stays it out is a eighty-year-old Bulgarian man who dreams of becoming an American country singer.

One day, Jack gives him a fifty rolled in with some change, and doesn't stick around to see the look on his face.

_Three: _It's the time of year when you meet people you thought you'd forgotten. He chuckles to himself at that last note.

He always thought he'd forgotten Melissa Tremblay, the dark and green streaks with slightly crooked front teeth and a wardrobe straight off the London runway that had sat behind him in AP Chem in junior year at Brogan Prep. They'd shared a textbook, or been lab partners. .

Something like that.

Melissa's parents were famous for inventing the self-heating so-and-so or something of the sort and spent their time touring the trade show circuit, leaving Melissa and her ten-year-old bother Tierney alone to the mansion, the credit cards, and most importantly, the liquor and medicine cabinets. A week didn't go by that they didn't have the police called to some warehouse Mel would rent out for a wild rave with an all-inclusive guest list.

So, yeah, Jack had used her to get wasted.

Except, in one of those moments that truly made him want to spit in the face of the god of decisions made under the influence, _wasted _had led to wasted sex, breathy and uncomfortable, the scent of indeterminable Jello shots and smokes and bruises from the warehouse basement floor the next morning.

Not exactly the first time anyone envisioned.

Later that week, Mel told him she was pregnant. It wasn't his. The next week, she called to say Tierney had been locked up for beating another boy senseless and disappeared out of his life. Finally, the week after that, a new girl, with bronze skin and shining chocolate eyes took her place.

Flash-forward. Jack sits on a hard backed, modern detailed barstool, knocking a shot glass from one end of the table to the other with small, precise, flicks. The glass glitters in the dim lighting, reminding him of the flickering, broken, fluorescent bars at those old parties, the moment when whatever had been in their poorly made cocktails made everything spin. He toys with his wedding band, too, just to remind himself of the _line_.

Angela isn't going anywhere.

_So then why did you tell her you were buying her paints?_, he wonders, as Melissa, all grown up with the same crooked grin and raven hair styled into a bombshell blowout.

Her ruby red painted lips curl into a slightly satisfied grin, as he remembers meeting her at the supermarket, recalling that ancient, long-buried thread of memory that's now led him to some dusky bar in the downtown.

"Oh, wow. Damn, Jack, you grew up_ hot._", she says, sipping on a martini, her lipstick staining the edge of the glass. He stays quiet, wondering if he should run the hell away or simply say something about Angela. Melissa giggles.

"I bet you're married, aren't you? She must be what...some hot number artist type you banged outta the dumpster with an IQ lower than the surface temp on Pluto who dresses like a bubblegum skank and thinks there's substance in a damn swingset? Never change, Jack, never _ever _change.", she laughs, as though they're reminiscing.

Jack bites his tongue, and she keeps talking.

"Well, anyway, remember Ricky Price? The guy with the eight-pack abs? _Yeah._", Melissa pauses to show off her shining white gold and diamond ring, dulled under the smoke and crap lighting of the bar, like a little star on a cloudy night. Jack notes with a sort of sick pleasure that Angela's looks far more sophisticated.

"He's a good guy, stepped up for the kid, right? So, we had, like three others. He can do things that would make my Puritan ancestors' decomposed skin crawl.", she says, somewhat morbidly. Mel coughs and sips at her drink, suddenly blushing a lighter shade of rose.

"_Um..._I'm a teacher now. I teach science at the international school, which is way easier for kids to swallow in the CSI generation. Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.", she tells him, nodding in his direction, cleavage poking out of the wine-colored low-cut tank top under her deep green blazer.

"Okay.", Jack agrees too quickly. "Let's talk."

For Angela, this time of year always seems to carry the unifying thread of everything slowing down, no matter what part of the world you're in.

When she was younger, _way _younger, it always meant being shipped back to school, the end of whatever summer tour she'd joined the guys on, and earlier and earlier sunsets that sprayed jets of pink across the sky before ending in a dreary, pre-night, grey. There was a sort of finality to the sky turning dark, as though it was certain that something had changed, and even the next morning, when it became bright again, it was colder, because you couldn't simply go back to what came before.

Not really.

Last time she'd been in the city, Angela had never noticed the kids in uniforms, never heard the younger ones cry on their first few days left at the steps of Kindergarten, tear tracks like rivers running down their muddy faces, let alone wished she could have done something.

Those children bother her in the strangest ways now, and she does what being Brennan's best friend teaches you to do best, and rationalizes. She brings it down to hormones, and shrugs off the terrible sense of foreboding that seems to come by every time she passes by the school at the end of their street, not wanting to think of what her child might feel like if she just left them outside like that.

Knowing what they probably will feel like just makes her angrier.

She and Jack discuss school, sort of, but Jack laughs when she mentions it, and points out that they can worry about schools and clothes and everything else when they come up with a better name for their child than Orange Juice.

Angela calmly points out he's looking at the grocery list, and life goes on.

It's times like that she almost wishes she'd stayed behind in the before, when she and Jack had been purely sex and friendship and love, in the abstract way that she thinks maybe love is meant to be, and the big picture had all been a little clearer, just like everything had seemed in the past.

They'd met in the basement of the split level he rented from an almost cartoonishly creepy old man, Angela and Tommy. If she remembered right, she'd thought_ sleazy,_ and Tommy thought _easy._ Perhaps not the best way to start a relationship, but he'd been different from the string of disposable guys that popped up and disappeared every week or so from her life.

He'd been the first of the goodhearted ones, the sexy older brother who made her pancakes for breakfast and kept whatever questions he might have wanted to ask in the back of his mind. They'd never really broken up, not officially anyway, which Angela thinks now she should have probably mentioned to Jack before she looked him up in the phone book and asked him to come over for dinner.

Not that Jack knows about her calling him, either. It feels strange, hiding something so stupid from him, but oddly thrilling, as well, like being underwater and forgetting that you aren't very deep, almost drowning before you realize you can come up. Then doing it again, just for the tingling sensation that grabs your chest before your brain takes over.

_Jack's not going anywhere,_ she reminds herself as she pulls the door open for Tommy. Her latest (and last) good guy is out buying her even more paints, and she thinks she'll blow up the painting of Jack as the angel on their bedroom wall later.

As much as the thought bothers her, staying in Paris is beginning to seem more and more plausible as the months pass by.

"Well, you gained a few pounds.", Tommy points out, his voice a scratchy, honey-on-gravel Scottish mix. He stands feet shoulder width apart, hands shoved in the pockets of a pair of designer slacks.

The old Tommy, the one she remembers so vividly, lives on in a paint-stained wifebeater under an unbuttoned blue and black plaid shirt, highlighting his smooth, toned, abs. He shakes blond ringlets from his dark eyes and fixes her with a mischievous grin. Angela flashes to the back of an imported 2002 Toyota and thankfully, manages to keep the thought from springing out of her mouth.

She hates those damn cars.

"I bet Daddy's a lucky man.", he laughs, kicking off a pair of bright green sneakers, the color of river foam at sunset, as she motions him inside.

Angela shrugs and glances guiltily down at her ring as she shows Tommy silently to the kitchen.

He follows behind her, mismatched socks padding along on the tiled floors. He stops beside the living room and pokes his head in, brushing back his bangs with one hand, ending in a rakish pose that it takes most of her resolve to not imagine him doing shirtless, on a billboard in the shopping district.

"Holy shit!", Tommy shouts, standing still in front of the painting of the lab. She playfully slaps him in the back of the head.

"I mean...um...where is that?", he asks, an old hunger springing up behind his eyes.

"The Jeffersonian Institution's Medico-Legal lab. I work there. Mostly.", she tells him, allowing herself to chuckle.

"You work in a crime lab? Didn't you throw up after you found a dead rat once?"

Angela shakes her head. "Oooh, no flesh or organs, or, actually I have an office. I'm a forensic artist and...that is better explained in a deep, African-american accent.", she says, catching Zack's painted gaze, her grin falling just a bit.

Tommy stares at her, puzzled, then grins. She remembers there's a lot that he hasn't, couldn't be a part of.

"You serious, Angie?", he laughs, then catches her eye and cocks his head. Tommy runs his fingers over Hodgins' curls, and traces the zipper down his labcoat.

"I bet every horny nerd in that place wants a piece of you. Don't tell me you're with any of the stunted lab rats. I know you're into intellectuals, but it's a disservice.", Tommy teases, jerking a thumb towards the lab, looking too cool to be here with her, like he always seems to have done.

Angela grits her teeth behind a perfect smile.

"Um...we can eat now, Tommy. I've got other paintings, actually, if you wanna see.", she mutters, hoping to break the blanket of tension that's suddenly fallen on top of them, a freak snowstorm that buries them in shards of ice.

"Really? Because, actually, that's what I wanted to talk about."

He rakes his hair back again, in that irresistibly sexy gesture. Tucking a hand casually back in his pocket, Tommy lets his undershirt ride up, and a sliver of skin the shade of desert sand sends blood rushing into her head, like a dam blasted through of memories of fireworks and infinite mornings after.

But he doesn't know that.

"Okay.", she agrees, mentally kicking herself for sounding too quick, blunt like Brennan, "Let's talk."

By the time he gets home, Jack is giddy. Really, really, giddy.

He and Mel had talked, mostly about their careers, over a growing tower of Jello shots ("_For old times sake_.", Mel giggled drunkenly.) that had deteriorated into a indiscernible soup of stories about experiments and chemical theories and lab assistant Fiona, and intern Vincent, and more.

He was too drunk to really remember the _more._ He'd said something about Angela, probably. Maybe even something about Booth. Zack? Had he mentioned Brennan?

_Why not_, Jack thought to himself, as he lazily dug out his wallet to tip the cab.

All of that pales in comparison, though, to the fact that he's got Mel's number, or rather, her boss' number in his left pocket. The school she taught at was offering a temporary position, an eight-week entomology seminar series, open for him to take anytime before the end of the school year. Their other choice, a Bulgarian entomologist working out of a Canadian institution, had been published in the journal and opted for the big international lecture tour ("_Sellout_.", Jack had muttered.) leaving the spot open.

Even being drunk, or pretty sure he was drunk, couldn't erase the utter euphoria the idea of getting back in his zone, and besides, he and Angela had discussed the possibility of his doing some small time consulting since last month.

She would love this idea.

He fumbles for his keys, and after jamming several of them on the ring into the doorknob, is greeted by a man wearing nothing but a paint-stained tank top, untucked into his slacks.

"Um.._.okay._ Who the hell are you?", he shouts, going for intimidating, and guessing, by the fact his the guy's socks seemed to glow, failing miserably.

"Not going to let you in, I guess.", the man says slowly, hastily shoving his right foot into the matching shoe.

Hodgins stumbles forward, grabbing hold of his plaid-pattered shirt, pulling them both down towards the scratchy welcome mat Angela had bought from a street vendor on impulse.

"What'd you do her?"

"What the hell? Look, I should just call the damn cops on-"

"Jack!", Angela cries,a worried look on her face that shifts almost immediately to absolutely livid.

"You know the creep?", she hears Tommy ask, muffled by Jack's chest.

"I know, um, a guy in the FBI. If you did anything to Angela, I'm going to, um, call him!", Jack threatens, too tired and spacey, and (by now he's pretty sure) drunk to really think up something appropriately terrifying.

"Yeah, I know your mother, you little freak."

Tommy pushes Jack off of him and dusts himself off, shooting Angela a concerned glance.

"I can call the police if you-"

"OUT!" she screams, throwing the receiver back to the sofa.

"But-"

She shoves Tommy out, too angry to really care what he might be thinking as he mutters apologies that float in the dead air between them. Exhaling loudly, she crouches down to Jack's level and glares at him.

"_You too_.", Angela orders, slamming the door behind them.

It takes her a moment to collect herself, taking deeper and deeper breaths on the couch, listening to the dial tone on phone, counting the minutes between each time a cheery french woman tells her what she guesses is either to dial a number or quit winding up the operators. She thinks of Jack, the time they'd broken up, the harsh light in the diner when he'd told her about trust. Lack thereof. Those thoughts become thoughts of speed, velocity, how fast that all was, how fast time is passing now. How fast it all turned into a trainwreck, and how she can't go back.

Not really.

At two thirty in the morning, she finally works up the nerve to throw Tommy's other shoe out into the hall. Then she snaps Jack's rubber band until her wrist is red and raw, warm and almost ready to bleed.

"Well that sucked.", Jack muttered to himself, as the buildings cleaning lady cast him a disapproving glance through her unibrow. As far as he could determine, he was outside he and Angela's apartment, no wallet, keys, anything. Except for the pounding headache. There was that.

"I thought so.", Angela replied, leaning against the door with a cup of coffee in her hand, hair tied back in a messy bun. She crossed the hall and handed him the coffee, wordlessly sinking down beside him, searching his eyes for an explanation he's too drained too offer.

"Um...I'll talk first. Tommy, the guy you tackled yesterday? He's-", Angela pauses to clear her throat and stare down at the suddenly fascinating tile floor.

"An old boyfriend. I just called him to see what he was doing, to catch up. He saw some of my

paintings and he told about me about an opening they have at a gallery he works for. It's near the airport, so there's a lot of foot traffic and publicity. We talked about a possible, um, if I wanted an exhibition there. There was no sex, or discussions of sex, or well, okay I thought of it. But...I mean it's like thinking of sex with Booth. I wouldn't."

Jack blinks a couple of times and takes a drawn-out sip of his coffee. "Did you say yes?", he murmured drowsily.

"To the exhibit? Yeah, yes I did. We said, next month, probably."

"Um, good. Because I agreed to teach a seminar on...bugs. It's my turn, right? So that's what I was doing last night. Mel gave me a position at this school she teaches. It would be eight weeks, and the place is just down the block. Good, right? We didn't...well, okay, she called you a gutter slut and there were memories of sex...um, and a lot of bending over. I don't think she was wearing a bra.", he says, bleary-eyed.

"You're very honest when you're hung over.", Angela notes dryly.

"Did I really tackle someone last night?"

"Wait, you can remember someone calling me a gutter slut and you can't remember fighting for your woman on our doorstep?"

"I have an internal drunk highlighter. How do you think I passed my finals after spring break?"

She lets that little tidbit sink in, and imagines adorable Jack in junior year, wasted out of his mind and doing something irrational, with that same wild look behind his electric eyes. They glance over at each other, Angela smirking, Jack close to nodding off again.

"I can trust you, right?", they both blurt out. The cleaning lady down the hall shakes her head at them, muttering under her breath.

"Yes." Again, in unison.

Angela giggles and punches him lightly in the arm. "You took the teaching job?"

"Mm-hmm. Theres a song about fireflies, right? Maybe I could use that.", he whispers.

"Yeah. So, who's Mel again?"

"Tell you in the morning.", Jack tells her sleepily, his head slipping to Angela's shoulder. The coffee falls from his grip, sending burning liquid sloshing across her lap.

"Ow! Jack!"

"Five more minutes...!"

**There you have it!**

**Reviews, suggestions, hate for me leaving it hanging for so long, ALL WELCOME!**

**Stay tuned!**


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